Know When to Fold
by gingersnapsxo
Summary: All it takes is one person to change another. AU one-shot drabble centered up until around Know When to Fold.


Re-watching Private Practice seems to have brought up a muse I haven't had in quite sometime. In my opinion, these characters have far too much chemistry to be ignored so I did a thing. A thing that will probably upset some people.

This is up until season 2 episode 9, _Know When to Fold_. Most of this drabble takes place in that episode but there are mentions of things in previous ones. **This is AU as Addison and Charlotte did not sleep together when Addison came down during the first Grey's crossover.** I have no beta so all mistakes are mine. There will probably be grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, you have been warned. _Please be gentle if you do not enjoy as there is a difference in constructive criticism and just being rude._

I do not own these characters! They are property of ABC and all others responsible for their flawless creation.

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This was stupid. Charlotte was stupid. Or that's how she felt about the entire situation at hand. Just a year ago she was hooking up with randoms on the internet with no strings attached. She liked the freedom, loved it even. Then Cooper Freedman happened. The dopey pediatrician from Oceanside Wellness that happened to have a profile on the same dating website as her. An anonymous website that only required word description, no photos, which was all Charlotte King would sign up for. Why? The last thing she needed was someone she worked with seeing a profile that basically offered her body up on a silver platter.

Back to the situation, things with Cooper got out of hand. Somehow the Chief of staff at St Ambrose lost sight of her end goal leaving her completely heartbroken. Heartbroken and peeing on a stick with the dopey pediatrician talking to her through the stall door. Having kids wasn't something the woman saw in her future, not yet anyway, because she enjoyed her life the way it was. Her biological clock was ticking, her mom reminded her often, but the urge to get knocked up just wasn't there. The urge to have sex was.

The worst part about this entire hoopla is Addison Montgomery. It was all her damn fault! She had to show up in LA years before to consult on a case. Things would have been so much simpler if she stayed in Seattle! After a night of many _many_ drinks, Charlotte found herself luring the ginger back to her house where she spent the night worshiping every damn inch of the OBGYN. It wasn't unusual for women to fall prey to the blonde, she enjoyed sex of all kinds, but it was out of the ordinary for Charlotte to keep in contact with them after they were finished with their sexcapades. Normally, it was a rushed goodbye before parting ways for whatever jobs they had to get to with promises of hooking up again; the _again_ rarely happened. But Addison Montgomery wanted to keep in touch, talk about life, which was oddly refreshing for Charlotte since most of the Oceanside quacks seemed to peg her for a Wicked Witch. She wasn't like the people Addison called her friends, she wasn't like anyone. What was the harm in keeping in contact with someone she had an amazing night with if she was hundreds of miles away?

The fact she decided not to stay hundreds of miles away.

Her return had not been expected which was incredibly baffling since they still spoke through text messaging on a regular basis. Their talks all but ceased as soon as Addison took up an office at Oceanside mostly because Charlotte felt betrayed. It was dumb. She knew it was dumb. They hooked up one night and kept in contact... it wasn't like they owed each other anything. Cutting ties seemed to be the best option. Personal and professional were separate - that was her motto. Now if someone could relay that message to Addison so she wouldn't keep trying to text her from time to time that would be great.

That's when Cooper came into the picture. Charlotte was licking her wounds from Addisons rejection by serial dating online, if one could call casual sex dating. In walked Cooper and out went her dignity. He was a good guy, a decent guy, and awesome in bed which help sedate her thoughts of the fiery red head. It was so damn hard to ignore the aching feeling inside her chest whenever she saw the former New Yorker prancing around the hospital corridors or when their professional lives collided. It was even worse when Addison saw her cry. Why did that moment of weakness have to occur right in the womans office? Over a case involving children no less! That's when it became real. They became real. The nights they spent texting about everything and nothing, the phone calls in the middle of long days just to say hello, the sexting in order to satisfy the other while the miles kept them apart all seemed so harmless until then. Why did she have to start falling for the woman?! Cooper helped her forget even if it was for a moment or two. The man coddled her despite the fact she didn't want to be and allowed her to be angry during sex. It was good. It was great! Or it had been until he figured her out.

A day spent watching Addison kick ass at St Ambrose caused all the feelings Charlotte worked hard to fuck out of herself to come rushing back. They worked in tandem, side by side, for hours to save lives. Addison owned the OR in a way that left the blonde awe-struck. It wasn't until Charlotte interrupted the sandwich date between Addison and Kevin that she experienced jealousy for the first time. She did not like it. Not one bit. This only led to the need to have the red head around more, a job offer that would put Addison in her life daily. A job offer that was rejected opening up a wound that she worked so damn hard to close. Only Addison didn't know how Charlotte felt so she had no idea how much she was hurting the woman. Cooper had come over that evening to find Charlotte holding back tears. She needed sex. She needed him to pound into her until she forgot it. Until she forgot about Addison. But he had to push to talk. He had to ask what was wrong. She stood there and told him that Addison turned down the job, that she rejected her, and even though she was doing her damnedest to keep it focused on professional he knew it was personal. He just knew. He knew and didn't ask questions... he just gave her what she wanted. Cooper always gave Charlotte what she wanted.

Communication with Addison became easier after that day. They were almost friendly. Charlotte allowed herself to being closing the door so she could move on. There was no point in crying over what could have been when she didn't even have the balls to step up and try to make it something. She couldn't bring herself to admit the feelings festering inside. It was better this way. She wasn't cut out for relationships anyway.

Besides, she still had Cooper to help her through the lonely nights which was a pretty good consolation prize. Though she probably shouldn't have considered him that. Their 'relationship' was private. No one knew. No one was going to know. Mostly because Charlotte didn't want Addison finding out. Why? She couldn't tell you, but something made her sick to her stomach whenever she imagined the red head knowing. Cooper didn't seem to mind at first but as time went on she had to find ways to pacify the guy so he didn't go blabber their arrangement to all of Oceanside. It was easy at first. Small things. She agreed to go on a vacation close to home so she could flee if she wanted, she agreed to talking about her past, she agreed to sleeping with him and only him. Simple. The man was warned from the get go she wasn't looking for love or a serious relationship. Just sex with occasional talking. Things were good for a while. Until the realization that they were only sleeping with each other, spending almost every night together, and she did feel something for him sunk in. That scared the living crap out of her. She needed something to take up more of her time so she took the first job offer that rolled across her table... running a practice.

Maybe she should have read the fine print when she took the offer but, to be fair, they didn't have a location whenever she was hired. She didn't know the practice was going to be built a floor below her 'boyfriends' place of work. And she couldn't tell him, or anyone, due to the non disclosure clause she signed. Just when things started to look up they began to crumble. Cooper decided to make them public at a bar, and then it all went to hell. And that was putting it lightly. Everyone at the practice knew they were dating and the looks she got from Addison stirred her stomach unpleasantly. No words had been exchanged but those damn eyes said it all. It was rather ridiculous that she cared so much about what this woman thought but one can not control the heart, unfortunately. Charlotte planned on telling Cooper about the practice as soon as she could, which wasn't until they hired staff, but Violet just had to go and out her. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that just when she felt like she could finally move on - like Addison had done with the SWAT guy - things broke. She broke.

She didn't even want to talk about the moment of vulnerability that happened while working side by side with Addison during a joint case at the hospital. Charlotte stood in the scrub room and asked Addison about Cooper. She shouldn't have but she did. Was it because of Cooper or Addison? She honestly couldn't say. But in that moment of weakness the words that left her mouth were more about their situation and not so much about Cooper. She had betrayed Addison. She did want to know how long she was going to have to pay for her crime of blowing Addison off upon her arrival in LA. It was nice to hear that anger was present, even if they were using Cooper as a cover, they both knew it wasn't about him. Or Charlotte assumed Addison knew that's what they were speaking of until it was asked if she was in love with Cooper. Denying it was easy because she wasn't. Did she love the guy? Yes. But she couldn't force herself to be in love with him no matter how hard she tried over the past months. The smile that took over the neonatals face in that moment was baffling but beautiful. And when she smugly told Charlotte she had no intentions of being friends with her there was a spark of hope. God, how she hated hope!

As if dealing with her hearts affairs wasn't enough, clients were coming to Pacific Wellness from Oceanside which only made Addison even more angry with her. She didn't ask the patient to come speak to her doctor. The woman wanted a second opinion on options to treat her cancer. It wasn't Charlottes fault that she picked _her_ practices doctor. The worst part about it all, the blonde found herself wanting to do nothing more than throw the OBGYN on her desk and fuck her senseless. The flares of anger sent licks of heat between her thighs in a way that she couldn't fix right now. She couldn't fix it because she was no longer with Cooper. Because Violet told him about the practice. The very practice that had Addison livid at her. When did her life become a soap opera?

A part of Charlotte wanted to be pregnant while she waited for lines to appear on the stick for all the wrong reasons. Maybe if the test had said yes then Cooper would have come back to cure her loneliness. To help her forget the troubles of her heart. Fate had other plans which was okay. This was the sign that Charlotte needed to know things with Cooper got entirely too complicated. They were no longer together and despite the pain of breaking up it was for the best.

Here's the funny thing about fate. As soon as she walked out of that bathroom, her phone rang and the patient that had left Addison's care to try Pacific Wellness needed surgery right away. As in right that moment. Lockheart was not a surgeon and the patient needed the best. Addison was the best. The patient needed Addison. She needed Addison. She was going to fix it no matter what it took

Charlotte never claimed to be sane because she knew that wasn't the case. Standing outside the OR while Addison operated was a bit stalkish and she would be the first to admit it. Once again, she was mixing professional and personal which was something she despised but something about the OB made her completely irrational. She just wanted to talk. See the woman smile. She didn't expect Addison to spit out the hateful things she did which, once again, leading to tears. What was it about this woman and making her cry? Why did they always have to be so damn harsh with her? And by they she meant everyone. She was a hardass at work, yes, but it got the job done - and done well. Becoming the chief of staff didn't happen by coddling surgeons and interns, it came by making tough decisions. Why couldn't people separate her job from who she was? Why couldn't Addison of all people?! They spent months talking over the phone getting to know each other in a way that no one had ever tried with Charlotte. Those nights meant something to her even if they were just wasted minutes to the other woman.

The pregnancy scare had shown Charlotte she wanted more. Normalcy. Leaving the hospital and going to see Cooper seemed like the best thing to do after the harsh conversation with Addison. There were apologies that needed to be made and the man did have a right to know what made her vomit the past 24 hours. Hell, if it wasn't for him she would never have assumed she was pregnant to begin with! Cooper planted the seed in her mind just because her head seemed to fall over a trash can during the most inopportune times. Food poisoning had been the villain leading to the ultimate demise of whatever they had left. Friendship was not even salvageable after some of the things the man said to her. She came to apologize for something she had no control over and got ripped apart. Why was it that no one cared to see past their own pain in order to understand others? Did legal action mean nothing to Cooper?! Charlotte could have been sued if she told him about Pacific before the contract stated. For a man who claimed to care about a woman he didn't seem to be interested enough to look at it from her perspective. And Charlotte knew in that moment that their dangerous casual sex dating turned something more didn't mean as much as either of them once believed.

The first thing that came to mind as she walked out of Oceanside was to call one of her old hook ups and get some control back in her life. There were plenty of people that loved the sub/dom side of sex in her contact list. A few that even let her border BDSM. For some reason, the thought didn't excite her as much as it once did. What the hell was happening to her? She needed to talk to someone. A person who wouldn't judge her which left pretty much no one. Everyone seemed to have something to say about everything, especially if it wasn't their business. While she was thinking about who to call her fingers seemed to have done the work for her by way of text. To Addison. She did offer to talk earlier that day so it wasn't as if she was intruding.

Sitting on her couch in sweats wasn't exactly the best way to win Addison Forbes Montgomery but over the past few years she learned a few things about the red head, she wanted normalcy as well. Charlotte King wasn't always the vision of perfection. The conversation about to begin was nothing but Charlotte explaining her deplorable actions. Sitting in normal clothes would hopefully portray the fact this wasn't some elaborate charade. There was no alcohol, no romance, no lingerie to try and lure the woman to bed. It was just Charlotte. The woman that the surgeon had gotten to know over the phone with no reservations. It was still the red heads fault. All of it. None of the past year would have been set in motion if they hadn't of kept in touch after what was supposed to be a one night stand. Hell, none of it would have occurred if they hadn't of fallen in bed together to begin with!

"You said you wanted to talk." Addison was the first to speak. Her arrival was almost half an hour ago and since they had been perched on the sofa without a word uttered between. Her tone was soft, concerned, which made Charlotte want to shrink back into her shell. The one that had everyone calling her Cruella and derogatory names she didn't care to repeat. "I'm here, Char. Tell me what's going on." Leave it to Addison to make her feel safe in the depths of hell.

"Coop and I... we broke up." It was just the beginning but saying those words were vital to the rest of what was to come. "And before you apologize, don't. Just don't." Fingers covered her eyes momentarily before dragging down the length of her face to cover her quivering chin. This was so hard. Why was talking so fucking hard?

"Okay. I wont." But she did move closer. Laying an arm over the back of the couch, behind Charlottes body, and pulling her feet up on the sofa, Addison made herself comfortable. A silent way of conveying the fact she wasn't going anywhere. She was here to listen.

Hazel eyes were burned with tears that she refused to let fall. Not yet anyway. Not until she said what she needed to say. "You know, it was so much easier to talk to you when you were hundreds of miles away." And there in lied the problem. Something Addison had been suspecting since day one. Charlotte was a private person and made that painfully known. Bitter laughter spilled out from Charlottes lips as Addison remained silent. Afraid to speak. Charlotte didn't blame her for that either. She felt like a ticking time bomb. "You came to LA and we slept together. It was great. Fantastic even!" Resting her elbows on her knees, Charlotte moved her chin to rest in the palm of her hand before turning to to gaze at the other woman. "The best I've ever had and I've had a lot of sex." Truth. A truth that brought a smile to Addisons face. "Life was amazin' up until that point and then something changed. I wasn't sure what it was but you drew me in. You drew me in like a moth to a flame." Tears still littered hazel eyes but a smile took over the frowns place. "Talkin' to you made my day, every day. It was the best part! I would wake up hopin' to see a text from you, call whenever I had free time just so I could hear your voice, and that should have scared me but it didn't."

"Because I was hundreds of miles away." Addison chimed in for the first time since the talk started.

The blonde nodded her head. "Yeah. Because you were hundreds of miles away. And then suddenly you weren't. I had no warning. You were just here after months of gettin' to know each other." Everything after this was going to get rough, for Charlotte at least, so she took a moment to collect her thoughts. The last thing she wanted to do was trip over her tongue and send the woman running out the door. "You didn't tell me you were comin' so I felt rejected. Like you didn't want to see me." This is where Violet would put in something that would make sense but drive Charlotte up the damn wall. The woman was infuriating but right most the time, not that she will ever admit that to anyone. "I was hurt so I stopped talkin' to you. I hadn't even realized that in the time we were apart I became celibate which is sayin' a lot for me. So I did the first thing that came to mind - I went out and started internet datin' again."

Addison really didn't want to hear all of this but it was only fair. She hadn't exactly tried to mend the broken bridge with Charlotte either.

"And by datin' I mean casual sex. Who would have thought one of those guys would be Cooper?" That made Addison sigh and glance down to her lap. An action that didn't go unnoticed by Charlotte. She took a hold of Addison free hand with her own, giving it a gentle squeeze before continuing. "I knew it was stupid but I did it anyway. There was something empowering knowin' that I was fucking with someone you worked with, and you had no idea. " She felt bad just admitting it but this was not a time to sugarcoat. "But that wasn't the reason we didn't tell anyone. I was afraid of what you would think. I don't know why because you rejected me time and time again."

"I never rejected you!" Yeah, Addison had to pipe in there. "I never would have rejected you."

Charlotte was bemused. Did the woman really not understand? "It was just sex at first. He even knew how I felt about you and didn't seem to mind." That made the red head a little angry but she held her tongue for the time being. "He helped me forget for a bit which is essentially why I like sex so much. That and the pleasure." She shrugged. "Everythin' just got complicated really fast. I was makin' up lies to cover my ass with him. Lyin' to myself about how I felt. Tryin' to force a connection that I didn't feel just to avoid feeling this." She gave Addisons hand a gentle squeeze. "Everythin' went to hell because deep down I knew it wasn't right. I was sabotagin' it subconsciously cause I knew." Hazel eyes held green through every word being said. Charlotte needed Addison to understand. To try to relate to her side of the story like Cooper refused to do.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" Addison was flabbergasted. She had no idea that Charlotte was harboring feelings for her, or that the woman's entire relationship was basically a lie because of it.

Shaking her head, Charlotte laughed quietly. "Why didn't you tell me you were movin' here?"

Touche. Addison pursed her lips together and contemplated just how to explain. It wasn't a difficult explanation but it was slightly embarrassing. "I was insecure." Charlottes eyes narrowed but she remained silent. "You are... well, amazing. Smart, funny, charming, great in bed, beautiful inside and out. I was just broken. I was a broken person looking for a fresh start." Addison intertwined their fingers just in case the blonde tried to run. "I was scared that I would come back and mess things up with you just like I have every other relationship. I ended up doing that anyway." She smirked.

"Yeah, you did." Charlotte teased to try and lighten the mood. "You have no reason to be insecure, Addi. You're the most amazin' person I've ever met! And I don't give out compliments lightly." She rarely gave them out at all. That reason alone caused a blush to creep over the older womans cheek as she diverted her eyes down to her lap. "We're quite a pair." They both laughed softly. Charlotte knew it needed to be said. She didn't want to say it but this talk was to get the truth out there. Despite the fact her heart was beating faster than any of her horses ever ran, she pushed on. "I'm not tellin' you this to guilt you into being with me. I'm not expectin' anything. I just thought you should know that I'm in love with you." That made Addisons head snap up. Charlotte released a long sigh before giving a single affirmative nod. "I have been for a while. I just didn't know how to tell you. We've both changed since this all began." When they first fell in bed together all either of them wanted was a quick one night stand, that's all Charlotte went for back then. Commitment wasn't her forte.

"You love me?" The words should have scared her like they did whenever Kevin said them weeks before, but they didn't. They actually calmed Addison and made sense. It all made sense. Her entire life she had been searching for love in all the wrong places. Stumbling to get her feet on the ground while the person she was with seemed to go on with their lives.

Charlotte nodded one again as the tears began to trail down her cheeks. "I do. It terrifies me but I do."

"Is it weird that I can say it back?" A smirk pulled on the corners of Addisons lips as she watched Charlottes eyes widen. "I love you, Char. It didn't click for me until Kevin said those words to me." That made Charlotte flinch. The woman had no idea that the cop had professed deeper feelings for the red head. However, Addison was quick to continue on to reassure the blonde. "I realized that I don't love him. I can't love him because I love you." Kevin, a man that she was still technically in a relationship with. A swat team member who was lying in her bed across town waiting for her return. It wasn't like they were on solid ground at the moment which made the words leaving her mouth all the more easy to say. "Hearing about you and Cooper was..." What was the right word? "...torture. When you told me earlier that you weren't in love with him I was happy. I was happy and that made me feel like a horrible person because he's supposed to be my friend!" She still felt terrible for it but not as much as before.

"So what do we do now?" Charlotte was terrible at relationships but Addison was no better. Conversations shared in the past allowed each woman to already know the fears the other felt about venturing into new territory with someone.

Addisons arm moved from the back of the couch so that she could lay her hand upon the blondes cheek. A smile broke upon her face as tears of her own began to fall while her thumb wiped those of Charlotte. "We do this. We do us."

"We do each other?"

The wag of the blondes eyebrows only caused Addison to laugh before she leaned in to capture Charlottes lips. The kiss was soft and sensual but not without passion. Hearts raced, body temperatures rose, and tongues dance a tango that only the two of them knew the steps to. When air became a necessity, the kiss was broke but forehead pressed together instead, neither quite ready to break the connection.

"We do this right." Addison finally replied to Charlotte. "We date. We get to know each other better. We have lots of sex because God I miss having sex with you." The red head almost whined the last part.

Laughing, Charlotte leaned in to place a chaste kiss on the others lips. "One time and I have you hooked. Damn, I'm good!" She teased.

"One night. Many many times." Addison corrected before they fell back into a familiar dance they never wanted to stop dancing.


End file.
